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Shahzaib Rafiq Sial 27 Years, Sial Groom

Shahzaib is an architectural designer and urban planner who graduated from NCA Lahore and now works with a Lahore-based architecture firm on civic and educational building projects. He is the kind of person who cannot walk through a city without noticing what is broken and imagining what it could be — the cracked footpath that could be a planted walkway, the abandoned building that could be a community library. He is idealistic about cities in a practical way, not a dreamy one. He is from Jhang but has fully adapted to Lahore’s rhythms while maintaining deep roots. His mother still sends him homemade achaar with every visiting relative. He is slim, spectacled, and almost always has a sketchbook within reach. He is regular in his prayers and takes Ramadan seriously. He does not drink, smoke, or attend mixed gatherings he considers inappropriate, but he does not impose these standards on others and is socially at ease in most settings.

Iqra Shahid 31 Years, Sandhu Bride

Iqra is a paediatric surgeon in her second year of fellowship at Children’s Hospital Lahore, having completed her FCPS I and II in record time. She is one of the youngest women in her specialisation in the country. She grew up in Gujranwala in a modest household — her father drove a taxi to fund her medical education and she has never forgotten it. She prays Fajr before every shift, keeps a photograph of her father in her locker at the hospital, and donates 15% of every salary to a children’s welfare fund without announcement. In the operating theatre she is known for calmness under pressure. Outside it, she is warmer and more self-deprecating than her CV would suggest she laughs easily, gets genuinely enthusiastic about good biryani, and has strong feelings about the relative merits of different cities’ chai. She wears hijab fully and considers it non-negotiable. She is close with her two younger sisters and speaks to her parents daily.